Well, I think I’ve gone through a second pair of waders in as many years. It’s my own fault as I did not follow the tip I am about to share. But… I’ve learned my lesson and will heed this advice next spring.
When I was fishing on Dog Creek, the guide (Steve Bertrand) and I walked along a railbed until we got to the spot where he wanted to move to the river. I glanced down and only saw a tangled mess of tall, interlaced bushes. He saw a path… a small path.. and hopped right down.
I watched as he whipped out a pair of small garden shears and in less than a minute had trimmed back the brush to the point where we could work our way through. All I could think of was the mess of rose bushes with dinosaur sized thorns that line the banks of most of the Maryland streams I like to fish in. The Patuxent is a classic example! The stream is lined with row after row of rose bushes that form a last line of defense for the fish in the river… a Maginot Line of fortifications that will fight hard to keep you back and inflict grevious wounds in your wader if you charge forward too quickly.
In fact, that’s where I poked my first hole in my waders this year and the holes have kept coming.
Next season, I am going to follow the example that Steve set and grab a pair of shears when I head out. Maybe I can get a pair of waders to last without endless patching!
I saw a cool pair of shears in Outdoor Life. It’s a leatherman model that combines the shears with other normal tools – so you can consolidate other stuff you carry into this one tool. It’s the Leatherman Vista model. The drawback is that while it has a lot of stuff built in, it looks like it is heavy and pricy. I did a search on Amazon for smaller pruners and found the model below – it weighs only 4.8 oz.
But – you probably already have something that will do just fine. Raid your wife’s garden bucket and grab what’s there – no need to spend money on this stuff when you can go to the fly shop and buy more of those flies designed to attract fishermen more than the fish!
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Patuxent in early spring – ALL the vegetation here is prickers!
Unless stated otherwise, this article was authored by Steve Moore